Barrancabermeja, Colombia – It is 6:00 a.m. and one thousand oil workers surround the leaders of their union, USO (Union Sindical Obrero de la Industria del Petrolero). At the entrance to Ecopetrol, the national oil company, Jose Fernando Ramirez, the human rights director for USO, starts chanting, “Long live the oil workers union!” and then “Down with Plan Colombia!” Workers thunder their response.

Tom Burke of Fight Back! interviewed Luis Adolfo, a leader of Colombian Coca-Cola workers. The heroism of Coca-Cola workers who are standing up to company-hired death squads has inspired support from workers across Colombia, and around the world.

More U.S. Special Forces are arriving in Colombia. Supposedly on a mission to train members of the Colombian military, they will be assisting efforts to guard a major oil pipeline owned by the U.S.-based multinational corporation, Occidental Petroleum. Insurgents who are fighting to free Colombia from foreign control often target the pipeline.

With the election of Alvaro Uribe Velez as president, the U.S. media says that Colombia is entering a new phase in “the war against terrorism.” President-elect Velez's platform calls for an end to negotiations with the armed insurgency and for a military solution to the conflict. The big story that's not being told is that more than 50% of registered voters abstained in the election. Community organizations in Colombia suggest that close to 80% of the electorate in the countryside opted out. With right-wing paramilitaries monitoring voting in many areas in the countryside, and Army tanks rumbling through poor neighborhoods in the cities, the election results are anything but a popular mandate to expand Colombia's civil war.

The Colombia Action Network, coordinating with the Comite por la Nueva Colombia and the International Action Center, called for emergency demonstrations against U.S. war in Colombia in late February. Protest slogans included, “Stop bombing Colombia's Zone for Dialogue!”; “Protest President Pastrana breaking off peace talks!” and “Stop Plan Colombia!” Protesters in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Portland, and on various college campuses rallied at Colombian consulates and at federal buildings to get their anti-war message heard.

San Salvador, El Salvador – Participants from over twenty countries met here for the International Gathering in Solidarity and for Peace in Colombia and Latin America, July 20-22. People from across Latin America, Europe, Canada and the United States came together for three days, giving their solidarity to the popular movement and rebel forces of Colombia. Speakers included revolutionary leaders, union activists, indigenous activists, academics, and leftist politicians.

On Sept. 29, an important demonstration will take place in Washington D.C. In conjunction with the protests surrounding the meeting of the International Monetary Fund, thousands will raise their voices against U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean. What follows is a reprint of the call to the protest. We urge the readers of Fight Back! to build for, and attend the demonstration.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ordered the Israeli army to intensify its attacks. The result – a wave of assassinations, armed incursions into Palestinian towns and villages and more operations to arrest activists in the Palestinian resistance. Using any means at hand to achieve these goals, Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ serves as a pretext and cover. More than 17 Palestinians have been killed since Christmas, including three children under the age of 11 who were shot in the head.

Stratford, CT – Shortly before dawn, Feb. 12, 100 protesters came together here at the gates of the Sikorsky Aircraft factory to protest the manufacture and sale of Blackhawk helicopters to Colombia. 25 demonstrators risked arrest and blocked the gate, trying to prevent employees from entering or exiting the plant, thus slowing down or halting production. No arrests took place.

The Bush administration knows nothing about peace. The administration backed Israel's brutal, right-wing Sharon government from day one, and waged a cowardly military attack on Iraq. In the aftermath of militarily defeating the Iraqi government, the Bush administration is trying to reshape the Middle East, dominate the entire region and eliminate all opposition to the United States. While the attempt to put down the Iraqi resistance continues, Washington is now taking aim at the Palestinian liberation struggle. Central to the struggle for freedom in the Middle East, the battle of Palestinians for Palestine serves as an example and an inspiration to all the Arab peoples of the region.

Chicago, IL – Around one hundred people gathered in Chicago April 7 and 8, for a historic meeting of Colombia solidarity activists from across the U.S. The Colombia Action Network (C.A.N.) is the first national network to bring together a true diversity of people to oppose U.S. intervention in Colombia and to support the self-determination of Colombian people struggling for peace with social and economic justice.

Fight Back! interviewed the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Saadat, on May 20. At a time when the eyes of the world are focused on the Middle East, we are grateful for the opportunity to bring you, our readers, the thoughts of one of the key leaders of the Palestinian resistance in his own words.

The Colombian people are fighting for liberation against a government that only serves the interests of the rich. The South American country has been involved in this civil war for decades, but, until recently, it has gone on unnoticed by the American public. In summer 2000, the U.S. Congress approved a $1.3 billion aid package, part of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's “Plan Colombia.” Its purpose is to fight the civil war in the name of a war on drugs. This aid will send military weapons and equipment, as well as U.S. Army personnel, to train Colombian soldiers.

Fight Back! is publishing the following statement criticizing the Geneva Accord – which purports to be a framework for achieving peace in Palestine. Like Bush’s ‘road map for peace,’ the Geneva Accord does not square with the aspirations of the Palestinian people for justice and liberation. When the text of the Accord was released Dec. 1, thousands protested in Gaza and other Palestinian cities.

Palestinian Prisoners' Day, commemorated throughout Palestine and by solidarity activists the world over, April 17, is a day to bring attention to the plight of all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails and to demand their immediate release.

The ‘Wall’ which the Israeli government began constructing in June of 2002, and which lies well within the borders of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, is devastating fertile Palestinian land, cutting off even more Palestinian water resources and destroying Palestinian villages – in some cases enclosing them on three sides. Israel is illegally, according to international law set out by the United Nations, snaking its apartheid Wall up to 3.8 miles inside the West Bank’s ‘Green Line,’ the internationally recognized borders for the West Bank.

New York, NY – Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, held its second international convention here April 16, entitled “Sustainable Struggle: The Road to Palestine.” Several hundred Palestinians and supporters, hailing from Canada, the U.S., Europe and Palestine, held a series of informational and strategy workshops aimed, in general, at advancing Palestinian rights, and, in particular, at the right of Palestinian refugees’ to return to their homeland.

Statement of Freedom Road Socialist Organization